The map of WW1 September 1914 military situation shows that both the Western and Eastern fronts had been stabilized by the end of the month. The initial fast offensives of the Imperial German Army had been stopped in their tracks at the First Battle of the Marne in France in early September. Thus, by the end of this month, the Germans were forced to put an end to the Schlieffen Plan.
Meanwhile, on the Eastern Front, the German 8th Army, under Paul von Hindenburg, managed to stop the Russian Army advance into German territory, forcing the enemy troops to fall back along its entire front into Russian territory at the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes. In 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution would break out and put Russia out of this armed conflict.
Instead of large-scale military offensives, from then on the military campaigns, specially on the Western Front, turned into the stalemate of trench warfare. World War I September 1914 had seen the annihilation of the cavalry as it was no longer the effective fighting force, which had characterized it in the past, specially during the Napoleonic Wars. Only the artillery reigned supreme. Howitzers and guns, fitted with hydro-pneumatic recoil system, pounded the battlefield, turning the conflict into a meat-grinder.
Below, map of the military situation in Europe at the end of September, 1914, WW1. The countries in white were neutral. Italy still remained out of the war, but in the near future, it would enter the armed conflict on the side of the Triple Entente nations (France, Great Britain, and Russia). Turkey was allied to the Central Powers (German Empire and Austro-Hungary).
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